Most Canadians support Liberal Leader Mark Carney disclosing the financial assets he’s placed in a blind trust while in office, as well as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre obtaining security clearance to receive briefings about foreign interference, according to new data from Nanos Research.
Both leaders have faced persistent questions over those respective issues, including pressure from each other, with both accusing their opponent of “hiding” things from Canadians.
Carney — who worked as the head of transition investing for Brookfield Asset Management until he resigned in January to run for the Liberal leadership — divested all his assets into a blind trust when he won the leadership, which is in line with the government officeholder ethics regulations.
But he’s faced criticism from the Conservatives, calling him “sneaky” for withholding the full details from the public, and saying he should proactively disclose his assets. The 120-day deadline for him to do so — as laid out in the Conflict of Interest Act — is after Canadians are set to head to the polls.
According to the new numbers from Nanos Research — as part of a survey conducted for CTV News and The Globe and Mail — 53 per cent of survey respondents said they “support” Carney “disclosing the value and details of his financial assets that he put in a blind trust,” while 10 per cent of people said they “somewhat support” it.
Eighteen per cent of respondents said they “oppose” the push for disclosure, four per cent of people said they “somewhat oppose,” and 16 per cent answered “unsure.”
According to Brookfield Asset Management’s latest annual report, Carney held $6.8 million in stock options as of December, before he quit to launch his Liberal leadership bid.
Earlier this month, Poilievre said if he becomes prime minister, he will make changes to the Conflict of Interest Act that would require leadership candidates to disclose their finances within 30 days of becoming an official candidate, and make them available to Canadians within 60 days.
As part of a push to get Carney to disclose his assets, Poilievre shared his own, with Conservative campaign spokesperson Sam Lilly writing in an email the Conservative Leader’s transparency stands in “stark contrast” to the Liberal leader’s.
“Following the threats of unjustified tariffs from President Trump, Mr. Poilievre chose to sell all of his investments in foreign economies and bring them home to Canada,” Lilly wrote in an email to CTV News last week.
Included in those investments is VCE - Vanguard FTSE CDA IDX ETF — which Lilly categorized as “an index fund invested in the Canadian economy” — which in turn lists Brookfield Corp among its top 10 holdings.
Poilievre should get security clearance: Survey
While Poilievre has criticized Carney for withholding the details of his blind trust, the Liberal leader has criticized him in turn for refusing to get the security clearance necessary to receive briefings about foreign interference.
Poilievre has said in the past that he has not obtained the security clearance, because doing so would make it more difficult for him to criticize the government.
Following a report from The Globe and Mail last week, CTV News also confirmed agents of the Indian government and their proxies allegedly interfered in the 2022 Conservative leadership race, which Poilievre won handily. According to two sources in the former Trudeau government with top national security clearance who spoke to CTV News, CSIS is not able to determine whether the alleged interference would have impacted the outcome. The sources also believe Poilievre would not have known about the allegations.
Lilly wrote in an emailed statement on behalf of the Conservative campaign last week that Poilievre’s leadership race “followed all relevant rules and laws.”
Now, most survey respondents told Nanos Research they believe Poilievre should receive “a national security clearance, as other federal party leaders have done, so he can receive briefings on foreign interference from the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS).”
Fifty-nine per cent of people said they “support the move,” and seven per cent of people said they “somewhat support” it. On the other side, 18 per cent of respondents said they “oppose” Poilievre getting the security clearance, two per cent said they “somewhat oppose,” and 14 per cent said they were “unsure.”
In her final report from the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference, among her 51 recommendations for the federal government, Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue said all party leaders should receive top-secret security clearance.
With files from CTV News’ Brennan MacDonald, Stephanie Ha, and Phil Hahn
Methodology: The CTV-Globe and Mail/Nanos nightly federal election tracking conducted by Nanos Research surveys 1,200 Canadians aged 18 years and over three days (400 interviews each day). Respondents are all randomly recruited through a dual-frame (cell- and land-line) RDD sample using live agents. Three quarters of the sample are administered the questionnaire by telephone and one quarter is administered the same questionnaire online.
The random sample may be weighted by age and gender according to the latest Canadian census data. Throughout the election, the interviews are compiled into a three-night rolling average of 1,200 interviews, with the oldest group of 400 interviews being replaced by a new group of 400 each evening. The current data covers the three-night period ending March 30th, 2025. A random survey of 1,264 Ontarians is accurate ±2.8 percentage points, plus or minus, 19 times out of 20.
